


Broken Time

by SpicyReyes



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Family Bonding, Gen, Genderfluid Loki (Marvel), Loki (Marvel)-centric, M/M, Minor pairings - Freeform, Multi, Time Travel Fix-It, chaotic neutral character is forced to be chaotic good and hates it, do I ever write anything else?, the answer is no
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 05:07:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14513199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicyReyes/pseuds/SpicyReyes
Summary: The universe must have some sort of grudge against Loki, because he just can't seem to properly die.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> honestly i have no excuse for this i just saw infinity war and within the first 20 minutes was like "well, THAT has to change"  
> so here ya go. shenanigans   
> dont read this if you havent seen IW part 1 bc. so many spoiler  
> now here you go, me giving myself an excuse to write frigga and loki  
> also last thing: pairings are WAY in the future so if youre just here for frostiron youre gonna be disappointed for a while sorz

As far as last words went, Loki had rather good luck. 

“I didn’t do it for him” had been an excellent choice, if he did say so himself, and he was remarkably proud of it right up until Thor showed back up and ruined the whole illusion. Beyond that, “You will never be a god” was less emotional or heartfelt, but far more genuine a sentiment, as it was much easier to put words to his outrage and distaste for Thanos than to admit to caring for his _ (adoptive!) _ brother. 

Apparently, though, the universe had a long standing grudge against letting Loki just fucking die. 

  
  
  
  


The end was upon them, and Dr. Stephen Strange had to make a call. 

Tony was going to die. There was nothing he could do, now, short of bargain for his life with the time stone, and handing that over would lead to far more death than just one man. He’d said he’d guard the stone before anyone’s life, and he meant it, even now.

Still, watching from the sidelines would do nothing, and he couldn’t stand to be helpless. 

The only way to prevent Thanos from getting all the stones would be to make sure that they were out of his grasp forever. While the other five were beyond his control, especially the four Thanos already had, there was still the one in his possession he could work with.

Stephen hoped that Tony would have understood, even accepted, that the doctor was using him as a distraction. Tony Stark was going to die, but the universe would be safer for his sacrifice. 

With the strength he had left, Stephen thought of someplace barren and remote, stranded in the middle of space, and sent the time stone there...armed with just enough magic to be a bomb.

Off in dead space, the time stone shattered into a thousand shards, the ripple reaching out to grab hold of the first thing it could.

Stephen had sent the stone to a place he knew would be abandoned: the wreckage of the Asgardian ship, nothing but debris floating through space.

The time stone’s energy, then, sought a vessel capable of holding it magic, and found it in the lifeless body of a former god.

Loki’s skin let out a radiant blue light, and then space warped around him, a dimensional rift sucking him away as the time stone’s magic activated.

  
  
  
  


Loki’s vision had faded on the sight of Thanos’ smug face, and he’d had a single moment of peace to acknowledge that at least whatever happened next wasn’t his problem anymore…

...Only to open his eyes to a crackle of magic, a wave of blue energy rising up around him like a cold fire, enveloping him in its flame. 

The energy dissipated as quickly as it appeared, tapering off into only the tiniest flicker in the palm of his hand.

His very, very  _ small  _ hand.

“Oh goodness, what was  _ that?”  _

Loki stiffened at a long-missed voice, looking up to see his mother’s face - youthful and concerned, just as he always remembered her. 

“I’ve never seen magic like that,” Frigga breathed. “I wonder if it’s…” She shook her head. “No matter. Whatever it was, you’re clearly very powerful. I’m sure you will master magic in no time, my son.”

The last word pierced his heart like an arrow, and he lowered his gaze from her eyes to stare at his own hands in bewilderment. They were very small, as he’d noted immediately, and he had a bandages wrapped around three of his fingers. 

_ I remember this,  _ he thought, confused.  _ This was the day Mother agreed to teach me magic.  _

He’d been a child at the time, a few hundred years old at the eldest, and he’d injured himself trying to learn on his own.

_ If this is Hell,  _ he thought, _ my sister’s realm is not what I expected.  _

“Loki?”

He looked to Frigga, and was alarmed to feel his eyes burning as he did. Disgusted, he looked away, locking his eyes to his now clenched fists in frustration. This spectre was not his mother, this memory was a sham, and he could not even take comfort in the pretending. 

This time in his life had been nothing but a lie. Her words, meant to comfort and guide, only reinforced the falsity: ‘my son,’ she’d said, as though he were her flesh and blood and not a stolen relic of a dead realm. 

“Loki, my dear, what’s wrong?” Frigga called to him. “You look as if you’re going to be sick.”

“Don’t,” he rasped out, and was horrified to discover he did so through tears. “If this is to be my punishment, do not try and make it kind.”

“Punishment?” Frigga echoed, sounding baffled. “Loki, you’ve done nothing wrong. That was rather good, actually, if it did surprise me a little. Come, now, why are you upset..?”

“Stop!” he cried out, hitting his knees - hating that he could  _ feel  _ his body, as though it were real, as though he were truly a child again knelt on the cold floor of his mother’s chambers. “Take me back to New York, give me my brother’s wrath, put me back in the beast’s grasp - anything but this!” He reached up, hands fisting in his own hair, tugging at the strands to feel something tangible instead of the swirling pain inside. 

“Loki, you’re worrying me, my son. Tell me what’s-...”

“You’re not even my mother!” 

He’d looked up to yell it, and that was a mistake: seeing the phantom’s face slowly slide into blankness, then into pain, the specter reacting as though Loki had struck it. Mimicking the pain his mother might have felt, to have heard those words. Would she have been hurt, he wondered, or would she have accepted the words and the truth they carried?

“How?” Frigga breathed. “What did you see?” She reached out, catching Loki’s hands in her own and pulling them free of his hair to clutch at her chest. “Did that strange magic grant you a glimpse into secrets of the world? Do you have Sight?”

Sight.

Loki knew he did not have Sight. He had never had any ability to predict even the most basic of things, too prone to creating chaos to be able to tell what path the universe would follow. However, the question brought a consideration to Loki’s mind: how much of his memory was real?

Could it be that everything he’d seen was the true spectre, and not his mother? That he’d glimpsed into the future and seen his life all the way to death?

But that was impossible. That wasn’t how the Sight worked, when those who had it tried to explain it to him. They always claimed it more of an instinct, a  _ feeling,  _ than a solid idea. Loki could remember a thousand years of life in perfect clarity. 

No, he hadn’t seen the future in a vision.  He had lived those years, each and every one of them, the good and bad alike. He had seen the horrors he’d seen and fought the battles he’d fought and he had died at the hands of Thanos on that wrecked ship just beyond Midgard’s atmosphere in the Earth year 2018. 

...Thanos.

Of course. Thanos’s gauntlet had infinity stones on it, hadn’t it? What if one of those stones had been the time stone? It wasn’t entirely unlikely that he had lashed out with his magic in death and caught the stone’s energy, enough to activate it or something like that. 

This...this could be  _ real,  _ could be more than a memory. He could be standing in a displaced timeline, creating an alternate universe with his every act. 

An intelligent, crafty, mischievous sorcerer like himself should have immediately tried to mimic his original actions in the time, to avoid any serious divergence until he could sort out what was really happening.

However, Loki had a priorities, and the stability of the universe had never been one of them.

Between one breath and the next, he’d stood on shaking legs and launched himself to his mother, arms coiling around her neck as he dragged himself into her grasp, feeling her return the embrace like she was directly lifting centuries of burdens from his soul. 

“Mother,” he breathed against her shoulder. “What do you know of infinity stones?”

“...How do you know of those?” 

Loki pulled back from the hug, scrubbing at his face with a hand to try and compose himself. “The infinity stones must be destroyed,” he said. “We have a few centuries at the most, but they cannot persist. They are too powerful.”

“My son, you’re speaking in circles.” Frigga rested her hands on his shoulders. “Speak plainly. What did you see?”

Loki took a deep breath. It was not in his nature to be direct, or to hand over control of a situation to another, but...in this, he could not act alone. If this was real, if he’d really been thrown out of time, his mother would know how to proceed.

“There is a conqueror,” Loki told his mother, speaking low, the wound too raw to be anything short of a close-kept secret. “He is called Thanos. Or, he will be. I’m not certain if he’s even alive, yet. But when he  _ is,  _ he will seek out a smith - most likely Eitri, of the Dwarves - and commission the forgery of a gauntlet, capable of wielding all six infinity stones at once.”

His mother sucked in a sharp breath. “That cannot be.”

“It  _ can,  _ and it  _ will,”  _ Loki said. “He will get the gauntlet and then go on to destroy everything he comes upon, planet by planet, until half the universe dies.” He reached up, pressing fingertips to his throat, feeling the phantom touch of the man’s crushing grip. “I lived for over a thousand years, fought a million foes and came out alive, and he crushed me under his heel like a bug. And that was with only the power of two stones. If he was allowed to get all six, the universe most certainly ended.”

“A thousand years?” Frigga echoed. “Loki, I don’t understand.”

“I died, about ten minutes ago,” Loki said. “I was one thousand and fifty-three years old, and Thanos killed me, and then I opened my eyes here. I think I might have activated the time stone, somehow.”  

Frigga slumped in front of him, eyes wide and distant as she processed that. “The time stone,” she echoed, soft and awed. “To think, your magic was enough to wield it…”

“You believe me?”

“Should I not?” She looked up at him. “My boy, your eyes speak more than your mouth ever could. You look at me with such sadness...when did you lose me?”

“Not terribly long ago,” Loki answered, weakly. “And it was my fault.”

“Death is inevitable, Loki,” Frigga started.

“No, it was literally my fault,” he countered. “You were killed by a dark elf, after I gave them  _ directions _ . In my defense, I was quite angry with Odin, at the time.”

Frigga blinked at him, stunned. 

“That’s another thing,” he said, latching onto the thought while he had it. “How exactly did he convince you to adopt a frost giant’s rejected abomination?”

“You’re not an  _ abomination _ , Loki,” Frigga said, exasperated. “You are my son, regardless of blood, and I will love you as such until the end of time.”

Loki swallowed, his throat feeling suddenly tight. “Oh.”

His mother laughed, running her hands gently through his hair. “You’ve given me much to think about, my boy, and I’m not certain I understand it. But for now...my dear, what do you remember of today? Enough to resume your life without raising suspicion?”

Loki was suspicious by nature, but this was his childhood, and he hadn’t yet earned his reputation as the ‘God of Mischief.’ He was simply a happy, light-hearted child, fond of books and games and causing trouble with his brother. 

His  _ brother.  _

“I will be fine,” Loki said. “Just...one thing.”

“Anything, my son.”

Loki gave her a sheepish smile. “Remind me how old I am?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome, Loki, to your childhood! Please don't murder anyone until you are at least 500.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh the response to the first chapter was so nice!!! im glad you guys support my continued self indulgence and my billionth time travel au lmao

Loki was around one hundred and fifty years old, which was pathetically young. Humans reached the level of development he was at after just about a dozen or so years, if he remembered correctly, which seemed remarkably convenient. He would certainly be pleased if his own physique could advance so rapidly, because he had only been a child again for about an hour and he was already quite sick of it. 

Conjuring an alternate form would alleviate the discomfort, maybe, but his mother had warned him to act as normally as possible. If some strange magic really was in play, they needed to be certain what they were dealing with before they tried to react to it. Getting everyone in a fuss over something they couldn’t confirm was unnecessary chaos. 

Still, ‘normal’ didn’t necessarily mean ‘good,’ and while Loki had been tamer in youth he had certainly not been well behaved. His only trouble was remembering which tricks he’d already pulled, and which this version of Thor would have yet to see. 

Well, that, and getting past the fact that this Thor looked at him with two eyes that were both bright with joy at the sight of him.

The realization that he’d been dropped before even the smallest troubles plagued his brother was startling, and he staggered for a moment in the doorway of their chambers, hesitating between one step and the next, fearful of entering the room completely and shattering the illusion of happiness and peace that it held.

“Loki?” Thor asked, voice octaves higher than the rumble it would be in a few centuries’ time and peaking with concern. “Did you see Mother?” The boy’s voice turned sly. “I bet she scolded you, didn’t she? I told you she wouldn’t teach you magic!”

“Oh, shut up,” Loki snapped at him, and would deny the fondness curling through the words if he was ever pressed. This Thor had yet to do anything to earn his ire, and if Loki played it right, he might never get around to ruining that. “I’ll have you know she did agree to teach me, and I’m actually quite good at it.”

“Mm-hm,” Thor hummed, skeptically. “Show me, then.”

This, Loki remembered. He remembered Thor challenging him when he returned to their rooms after the real lesson, a lifetime ago, and Loki had tried to conjure a small flame and been humiliated by nothing more than a weak spark. He wasn’t the child he once was, though, and while his body would need time to adjust to the level of magic he was once capable of -  _ would be  _ capable of, he supposed - he had not exhausted himself yet and the knowledge of the spells was already there. 

Illusions were his specialty, and the disguise he chose unfolded across his skin with the ease of a breath, until he was looking at Thor from above.

“Wow,” Thor breathed. “She’s pretty.”

Loki snorted, and dropped the form of the human woman he’d donned, internally laughing at his own choice. Jane Foster would not have been happy with him using her face, but perhaps Thor would be able to recognize a familiar face in the future. 

Most likely not, though, as there were...what, eight hundred years or so until she was even conceived? 

Ugh. Loki had never understood Thor’s choice, there. 

(Then again, Loki had made some questionable choices, himself. He tried not to think too hard about whether he should let that one particular drinking contest go far enough as to gift him with Sleipnir again. Even the mere thought of that Vanirian liquor made him nauseous.)

He supposed it made sense when one considered that humans aged steadily, as opposed to the Aesir, whose development slowed to a crawl with pubescence, until they reached full maturity after a few centuries as adolescents. 

Still, three hundred or so years versus the mere twenty or so it took humans to reach that point...they were remarkably short-lived creatures. Getting attached to one seemed ridiculous. 

Maybe Thor wouldn’t, this time around. Loki would keep him from Midgard entirely, just to be safe, except his banishment had made him significantly easier to deal with, if a bit too sentimental. 

That was the future, though, and at the present all he had to worry about was the look on Thor’s face.

“See, illusions,” Loki said. “I told you she showed me, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” Thor acquiesced, “but you’re a liar.” 

“Rude,” Loki muttered in response. “I’ll have you know I’m not nearly as big a liar as I can be.”

“What’s that mean?”

Loki grinned, almost sadistically. “That’s for me to know, and you to wonder.”

“Loki,” Thor whined. “Fine. Keep your secrets. Do you think Father will teach me fighting, since Mother taught you magic?”

“No,” Loki replied automatically. “Mother is nicer.”

Thor pouted. “That’s a mean thing to say.”

“It’s true, though,” Loki countered. “Odin-...”

“Odin?” Thor echoed, confused.

Loki faltered, and cursed himself internally for the slip. In his childhood, he’d had no cause to address the Allfather by his given name. Even a bitter child would have likely chosen a title over such a blatant disregard for propriety. 

As it was, it was too late to hide it, so he tried to cover it instead. “ _ Odin,  _ Ruler of Nine Realms, does not have time to be a tutor,” he finished, simply aligning the name into a title to make it more natural. “Bother someone less important.” 

Thor gave him a sly look. “Are you saying Mother is less important?”   
“No!” Loki scowled. “As I said, she’s kinder. Even if she’s busy, she will make time for us.” 

She had always made time for Loki, even when he was imprisoned. She’d visited his cell and he’d repaid her by directing her killers to her door. Another reason to hate that Midgardian woman, who Frigga died protecting, but also a reason to watch his own behavior. He couldn’t afford to lead this timeline into the same chaos he’d sewn before, that would make it only that much easier for Thanos to conquer. 

He shook the thought, bringing himself back to task. “Thor,” he said. “Do you know where…” He paused, grit his teeth, and forced himself to carry on. “Do you know where Father is?”

Thor shrugged, and gave Loki his best guesses, before running off, calling that he was going to bother some of the warriors in Odin’s guard. 

Loki, in the meantime, headed for the throne room. Whether Odin was there or not, there was something he needed to see.

  
  
  


The pictures on the ceiling were not complete, missing the images of the elder versions of Loki and Thor that would be added in the future, but the blank spaces were filled with elegant, nonsensical designs to act as placeholders until more was added.

Loki thought of the secrets hidden beneath it, revealed by Hela’s destruction, and let his eyes fall shut as he recalled the images as best he could. 

“Loki,” Odin’s voice called to him, making him tense. “It is rare for you to come this way without your brother. Is something wrong, my son?”

_ Your brother  _ and  _ my son,  _ casual lies weaved into his speech. Loki considered himself Odinson to an extent, sure, but that extent was rather small and heavily limited by his unending bitterness regarding his heritage.

He opened his eyes again, looking over the images, resting on the image of Odin painted standing back-to-back with Laufey.

A symbol of their peace agreement, in which Laufey had relinquished weaponry in exchange for the end of the war and retreated to plan a betrayal of that truce some centuries ahead. 

Had Laufey known, going in, that the Casket of Ancient Winters was not all Odin took from him? Did he care at all to discover the infant he’d left to die had vanished instead?

Loki had grown up unaware of his true nature, fooled by Odin’s lies and the glamour upon him, never questioning why his growth slowed much sooner than Thor’s or why heat exhausted him so quickly or why trickery was the only thing that truly came naturally to him. 

“Loki?”

Odin was still there, still prompting, and Loki had been silent for too long to go unnoticed. 

Part of him wanted to demand answers then, to reveal his knowledge and force Odin to acknowledge his sins, but his mother’s advice had been sound and his own instincts for manipulating situations won out. 

“Father,” he said, skill with lies coming in to play to keep anything from entering his tone. “You have many treasures down here. Which is your favorite?”

“My favorite?” Odin echoed. “...I don’t suppose I have one. They are relics to serve as mementos, not souvenirs.”

“Are they not trophies?” Loki prompted, looking to the allfather with raised brows. “Prizes to show your victories?”

Odin gave Loki a weighted, calculating look. “You’ve some idea about you,” he mused. “What are you after, Loki?”

“Nothing in particular,” he said, jovial and dismissive. “I was just curious. I know which would be Thor’s favorite, and which would be mine, so I was wondering yours.”

Odin took the bait. “And what would your favorites be?”

“Thor would like the weapons best,” Loki said. “Perhaps the Tuning Fork - the idea of being able to summon a powerful demonic creature to fight would appeal to him greatly, I’d presume.”

Odin stepped forward, coming to Loki’s side. “And you?”

Loki looked up, eyes locking with the portrait of Laufey. 

The Casket’s name was on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it back. Let him keep that particular card close to his chest, for now. 

“The Eternal Flame,” he said, instead. “A font of magic that knows no limitations, not even those of life and death.” 

“It is perhaps the most dangerous item among my collection,” Odin said. “It holds the power to bring about the end of Asgard, if it falls to the wrong hands.”

The hands that had destroyed Asgard had been Loki’s own, and he remembered watching the planet crumble. 

He never did get to thank Thor for letting him do that. It was highly satisfying. 

“Anything could bring about the end of Asgard in the right hands,” Loki said. “...Wrong hands. Whichever.” 

“A wise observation,” Odin complimented. “And a curious one for such a young child to reach.”

Loki turned a small lie of a smile on him. “Is it? I should be the one keeping an eye on who is threatening Asgard. I’m certainly better suited to it than Thor.”

Odin blinked at him in shock - at least, presumably, as he had no reason to  _ wink  _ and it’s all really the same for him. “First you contemplate the fall of Asgard, now you weigh your talents against your brother’s...has something happened, Loki?”

“I’m learning magic from Mother,” Loki offered as an explanation. “Thor wants to learn fighting, but has to hunt down a teacher, first, so I’m ahead of him by a good bit there.”

“I see,” Odin said. “You boys have gotten into a bit of a competition, then?”

Loki reached up, catching a lock of his chin-length hair and mourning the fact that he’d have to waste time growing it back out. “A bit of one, yes,” he confirmed. “I’m winning, obviously.”

Odin laughed softly at him. “You have always been competitive.” 

Giving a wry smile, Loki threw out a casual, “It’s in my blood.”

Odin only hesitated for half a second, the underlying meaning apparently going right over his head as he reacted only to his own recollection that Loki’s blood was not related to him at all. “Indeed it is, as I’m sure Thor will prove.”

“Yes, well,” Loki said, waving a hand dismissively. “Thor hates studying, so I’m probably going to be winning until he’s old enough for actual sparring and physical practice. Once he gets-...”

Loki cut off, and Odin raised an eyebrow. “Once he gets..?”

“A weapon,” Loki finished, weakly, cursing himself for almost slipping and mentioning Mjolnir. Odin had not yet gifted the hammer to his eldest son, and Loki couldn’t even be certain he  _ would,  _ even if it was strange to picture Thor without it. “Once he has something to swing about and threaten people with, he’ll take the time to learn how to use it. Until then, anything anyone lectures him about will go rushing right past his ears.” 

“And you are a more studious type,” Odin said, voice almost teasing. “That’s what you’re saying?”

“Not even slightly,” Loki replied. “I’m just able to practice all I want to, since no one can exactly lock magic away in the armory to keep me weaponless.” 

Odin laughed again, this one louder and sounding heavily amused, and Loki marveled at it. 

Perhaps, in this life, his family would be just that. A  _ family.  _ The elder, dying Odin on Earth had shown Loki a new side of the Asgardian ruler, and Loki had been surprised to realize he wanted to know more of him. 

Maybe he could bring that Odin out in this one, maybe he couldn’t...but, really, he had nothing to lose by trying. 

Or, well, he  _ did,  _ but he’d never been able to resist a gamble. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case anyone is new to norse mythology or the thor fandom, sleipnir is an eight legged horse that loki gave birth to after turning himself into a mare and seducing a workhorse, because thats the kind of shit he did in norse mythology, the harlot


End file.
